University of North Carolina at Charlotte Friendship Paper

For Chapter 3, The Now and Beyond, you
will interview your friend about the friendship (on the phone, in
person, on Face Time or Zoom or Skype, etc. or via email). Your chapter
will include a list of interview questions you devised, and your
friend’s responses to your questions. You will also offer a brief
interpretation of how your friend’s views and understandings of your
friendship match (or don’t match) yours.

The focus of the story for this
chapter is the way the friendship functions/thrives in your life. What
is the relationship like now? What makes it work? Or, if it has faded or
failed, examine why that is the case. Again, as in chapter 2, you’ll
want to write about significant or memorable obstacles, challenges,
conversations, or conflicts, as well as your friendship’s specific
communication patterns and practices. Do you share stories, memories,
reminiscences or other communication practices (listening, conflict
management, helpfulness/support, etc.) that serve to keep the friendship
alive?

This assignment is an early DRAFT of
your larger story’s third chapter. The chapter will most likely pick up
where Chapter 2 left off, or at least point the reader to where you are
in time, and bring things up to the present moment. The focus of this
chapter is to show how you maintain your relationship (how you work
toward keeping the friendship going, what you kinds of things you do
together, and so on). Speculate: Why are you friends? What is
it about this person, this relationship, that is special? If you are not
as close as you once were, why is that so?

Remember: There is nothing quite like action and dialogue to reveal character,
so do treat this as an opportunity to craft a vivid and detailed and
evocative story that will show your “friendship world” to readers who do
not know it from the inside.

As before, after crafting
the full narrative, include a brief (scholarly) reflection section at
the end that ties the dynamics of your friendship to the literature on
friendship that we have been reading.